JASON STARR - Panic Attack

“Whatever, I guess I’ll stay,” Marissa said. Then she said to Xan, “If you have to go home, I understand.”

“Are you kidding me?” Xan said. “There’s no way I’m leaving you alone tonight.”

Marissa managed a smile and said, “I have no idea what I would’ve done without you here.”

“I want to thank you too,” her father said, “for taking such good care of my daughter.”

“No thanks necessary,” Xan said. “It’s the least I could’ve done.”

Not surprisingly, Marissa didn’t sleep. Xan held her all night as she stirred, cried, and occasionally wailed. The world had never seemed more random and more insane. In her head, she kept telling herself, My mother’s dead, my mother’s dead, hoping this would help her accept what had happened, but she kept reliving the shock, as if she were still at the movie theater, hearing the news for the first time.

Around dawn, Marissa was still awake, feeling miserable. Xan hadn’t slept at all either, and he’d held her all night. Looking into his beautiful, kind blue eyes, she said, “I’m so lucky I have you,” and he said, “I was just thinking the same thing.” She wanted to feel him inside her so badly, to be closer to him, as close as she could possibly be.

“Make love to me,” she said. “ Please make love to me.”

He did, and even though she was crying throughout, it was still very nice. Afterward, when they were lying on their sides facing each other, Marissa said, “So do you think that Tony guy did it?”

“It must’ve been him, right?” Xan said softly.

“I don’t know,” Marissa said. “That asshole detective kept asking me about my father.”

“That’s just the way cops are,” Xan said. “I mean, I imagine they have to look at these things from every different way, you know?”

“I know, but that’s what scares me. I mean, he’s a cop, he know what he’s doing. Why would he keep harping on it if, I don’t know, there wasn’t some ba sis to it? Why would he waste his time like that? You know what I mean?” “Your father’s an amazing guy,” Xan said. “He’d never do something like that to your mother.” He was running his fingers back and forth along the inside of one of her arms. It felt so good. “I mean, would he?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not saying this is what I think or anything, so don’t take it the wrong way- but it’s true that your parents were having serious problems lately, right?” “Right,” Marissa said, remembering her father gleefully telling her mother that he’d slept with Sharon Wasserman.

“I’m just saying, from where I’m at, just kind of being, like, an outsider to all of this, it seems kind of, I don’t know, coincidental to me.”

“I know,” Marissa said.

“I mean, think about it,” Xan said. “Your parents announce to you that they’re getting divorced, and the same day your mother’s killed? It does make you think, you know? You don’t want to think it, but you still think it.”

That word, “killed,” gave Marissa a jolt. She shifted away and sat up, then said,

“Yeah, but that’s why I think Tony probably did it. Maybe my mom told him she was splitting up with my dad but didn’t want to be with him and he got pissed off and came over here and lost it. The guy’s crazy, a total psycho. You saw what he did to my father, right?”

Xan kissed her softly on the lips- God, she was dying to feel him inside her again. He said, “I know, and you’re probably right, but you said your father went over to the gym the other day and started the fight with Tony. You said he got in that big fight with your mother, too-”

“But I heard my father saying something about how the note that Tony left, the one about him and my mother, looked like the note he got last week, the one that threatened him about the robbery.”

“Just because Tony left the notes doesn’t mean he killed your mother.” “But it shows he’s crazy, that he might’ve robbed our house, for God’s sake.

Maybe he was angry because my father shot that other guy, what’s his name,

Sanchez, so he came back here and killed my mother to get even. Or maybe it was like I said before, because my mother was breaking up with him.” “Like I said, I think you’re right, it was probably Tony,” Xan said, “but- and

I’m just throwing this out there, so don’t get upset- what if your father left the notes?”

“Why would he do that?”

“To set Tony up. Maybe he found out your mother was cheating on him, then left the notes and then went to start a fight with Tony, knowing he’d get beat up, knowing it would make Tony look bad. You see what I mean?” “But would my father really think it through that much? Would he really do all that planning?”

“I have no idea,” Xan said, “but he did kill somebody before, right? And if he killed before, I guess that means he could do it again.”

Marissa couldn’t deny it anymore- what Xan was saying was making a lot of sense, too much sense. She could easily see her father, especially the way he’d been acting lately, losing control and snapping. He could’ve been arguing with her mother and impulsively grabbed the knife just like he’d impulsively gone into the closet the other night to get the gun.

“Oh my God,” Marissa said. “He did it.”

“Whoa, come on, I didn’t say that,” Xan said.

“It’s like I’ve been in this deep denial or something. Oh my God, I can’t believe this is happening.”

Xan moved on top of her, resting on his knees and elbows, looking down directly into her eyes, and said, “Nothing’s happening. You don’t know anything, the police don’t know anything.”

“I won’t be able to handle this,” she said. “I’m warning you right now, I won’t be able to get through this.”

“Don’t worry, I’m here,” Xan said. “No matter what, you’ll be okay, I’ll make sure you’re okay. But if it turns out that Tony didn’t do it, I mean he has an alibi, I just want you to be ready for the police to start looking at your father, you know? I don’t want it to be a shock to you.”

She imagined her father grabbing the knife and sticking it into her mother’s back.

“Oh, God, no, no, no,” Marissa said as she wrapped her arms and legs around Xan’s warm body as tightly as she could.

Later, Marissa didn’t want Xan to leave. She was afraid to be home alone with her father.

“I’ll stay with you as long as you want me to,” Xan said.

“But you don’t have any clothes or-”

“I don’t care. You’re the only thing I care about right now.”

Xan was blowing her away. He was just so perfect.

They took turns going to the bathroom, and when Marissa went she heard her father talking downstairs on the phone.

“You should probably go down,” Xan said.

“I don’t want to,” Marissa said. “I just want to stay here in bed with you all day.”

“I’d go down with you, but this is a family thing, and you two should be alone right now, have some time to yourselves.”

“I don’t want time with him.”

“I’ll be right here,” Xan said. “If you need me, just call for me and I’ll be right down, okay? You don’t have to worry about anything.”

Figuring she’d have to face her father eventually, Marissa decided to just go down and get it over with.

From the staircase, she heard her father talking on the phone in the dining room. She didn’t know how they were ever going to use the kitchen again because she sure as hell wasn’t going in there anytime soon. She’d order in Chinese food for every meal if she had to.

When she went into the dining room, her father, sitting at the table, made eye contact with her as he finished a phone call. By his tone, she knew he was talking to his friend Stan.